The Historians' History of the World 05

He never discovered any great regard to moderation, either in his command of the army, or civil offices; for we have the testimony of some writers that he requested money of the proconsul his predecessor in Spain, and the Roman allies in that quarter, for the discharge of his debts; and some towns of the Lusitanians, notwithstanding they attempted no resistance to his arms and opened to him their gates, upon his arrival before them he plundered in a hostile manner. In Gaul, he rifled the chapels and temples of the gods, which were filled with rich presents; and demolished cities oftener for the sake of plunder than for any offence they had given him. By this means gold became so plentiful with him that he exchanged it through Italy and the provinces of the empire for three thousand sesterces the pound. In his first consulship he stole out of the Capitol three thousand pounds’ weight of gold, and placed in the room of it the same weight of gilt brass. He bartered likewise to foreign nations and princes, for gold, the titles of allies and kings; and squeezed out of Ptolemy alone near six thousand talents, in the name of himself and Pompey. He afterwards supported the expense of the Civil Wars and of his triumphs and public shows, by the most flagrant rapine and sacrilege.

In point of eloquence and military achievements, he equalled at least, if he did not surpass, the greatest men. After his prosecution of Dolabella, he was indisputably esteemed among the most distinguished pleaders. Cicero, in recounting to Brutus the famous orators, declares “he does not see that Cæsar was inferior to any one of them; that he had an elegant, splendid, noble, and magnificent vein of eloquence.” And in a letter to C. Nepos, he writes of him in the following terms: “What! which of all the orators, who, during the whole course of their lives, have done nothing else, can you prefer before him? Which of them is ever more pointed in expression, or more often commands your applause?” In his youth he seems to have chosen Strabo Cæsar as his model; out of whose oration for the Sardinians he has transcribed some passages literally into his Divinatio

. He is said to have delivered himself with a shrill voice, and an animated action which was graceful. He has left behind him some speeches, among which are a few not genuine; as that for Q. Metellus. These Augustus supposes, and with reason, to be the production of blundering writers of shorthand, who were not able to follow him in the delivery, rather than anything published by himself. For I find in some copies the title is not “for Metellus,” but “what he wrote to Metellus”; whereas the speech is delivered in the name of Cæsar, vindicating Metellus and himself from the aspersions cast upon them by their common defamers. The speech addressed “to his soldiers in Spain,” Augustus considers likewise as spurious. Under this title we meet with two; one made, as is pretended, in the first battle, and the other in the last; at which time Asinius Pollio says, he had not leisure to address the soldiers, on account of the sudden assault of the enemy.

He has likewise left commentaries of his own transactions both in the Gallic and the civil war with Pompey; for the author of the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish wars is not known with any certainty. Some think they are the production of Oppius, and some of Hirtius; the latter of whom composed the last book, but an imperfect one, of the Gallic War. Of those memoirs of Cæsar, Cicero in his Brutus

speaks thus: “He wrote his memoirs in a manner that greatly deserves approbation; they are plain, precise, and elegant, without any affectation of ornament. In having thus prepared materials for such as might be inclined to compose his history, he may perhaps have encouraged some silly creatures to enter upon such a work, who will needs be dressing up his actions in all the extravagance of bombast; but he has discouraged wise men from ever attempting the subject.” Hirtius delivers his opinion of the same memoirs in the following terms: “So great is the approbation with which they are universally perused, that, instead of exciting, he seems to have precluded the efforts of any future historian. Yet with regard to this subject, we have more reason to admire him than others; for they only know how well and correctly he has written, but we know likewise how easily and quickly he did it.” Pollio Asinius thinks that they were not drawn up with much care, or with a due regard to truth: for he insinuates that Cæsar was too hasty of belief with respect to what was performed by others under him; and that, in respect of what he transacted in person, he has not given a very faithful account—either with design, or through a defect of memory; expressing at the same time an opinion that Cæsar intended a new and more correct production on the subject.

Temple of Vesta, Rome